Charles Lane

Charles is a radio reporter, story teller, Excel ninja, database grasshopper and loves to FOIL records. He's worked for NPR, Deutche Welle, Radio Netherlands, Soundprint, Penthouse, the Religion News Service and the Catholic World Report. He's won three SPJ Public Service Awards, a National Murrow and was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He once did 8Gs in a stunt plane, caught a 10-foot wave (briefly) and dove 40 meters on a single breath. Charles is extraordinarily friendly so don't hesitate to contact.

Spotify, the popular music streaming service, will officially take the company public this spring and is planning a very unconventional IPO — short for "initial public offering" — that has investors talking.

Property owners started filing insurance claims before the rain even stopped. They wanted to get to the front of what's expected to be a long line of flood claims, according to Joel Moore, an independent insurance adjuster for Gulf Coast Claims in Houston.

"They filed claims before they evacuated," he says. "So they actually have no idea if there's damage or not. They just wanted to be at the front end of the curve."

The Suffolk County Police Department in New York, one of the largest and highest paid in the country, has been under federal scrutiny for years, and it got worse recently when its chief was arrested.

The Justice Department, under U.S. Attorney Robert Capers, arrested James Burke in December after he allegedly barged into the interrogation of a suspect, Christopher Loeb, in 2012. Burke "is to have alleged to have repeatedly slapped and punched Loeb about the face, head and body while Loeb was in custody and handcuffed," Capers said at a press conference after the arrest.

Stores may be decorated for the holidays, but warmer-than-normal temperatures throughout the U.S. hardly make it feel like it's gift-giving season.

Initial sales reports have been subdued, not exuberant. Some economists say consumers are spreading out their shopping over a longer-than-usual period and that December sales will be fine once the weather turns colder and shoppers run out to use their gift cards.

Electronic messages can circle the globe in an instant these days. But electronic payments can still take days to complete, and that slow pace puts consumers at greater risk of getting hit with late payments, overdraft fees or other costs.

Now, regulators are pushing for faster electronic payments.

Jasmine Dareus, a college freshman, is scrolling through some recent bank statements. "A lot of it was books and stuff like that, like textbooks," she says.

Dahab, Egypt, just north of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula, is perfect for free-diving. A diver can have tea in a simple beach cafe and then take just a handful of steps into the Gulf of Aqaba, where the seafloor plunges more than 100 yards into a wine-glass-shaped blue hole.

A suburban county on Long Island, N.Y., is taking a novel approach to monitoring sex offenders: It's giving the job to a victims' advocacy group.

The measure was approved unanimously earlier this year; lawmakers call it a cost-effective way to keep citizens safe. But a local lawyer calls it a "vigilante exercise," and convicted sex offenders are organizing to challenge the legislation.

It looks almost like the Millennium Falcon, creeping ever so slowing, taking up the entire roadway on New York's Long Island. A team of spotters walks alongside, calling out trees that need cutting and road signs that need to be taken down.

Its name is the Muon g-2 (pronounced g minus two) and it's a very powerful electromagnetic ring capable of carrying 5,200 amps of current, says Chris Polly, the lead scientist for the ring's experiments.

"It creates a very strong magnetic field that allows us to store a special particle called a muon," he says.